Gutierrez shoved my legs off him and I fell onto my shoulder, still dizzy from getting gun-whipped. He easily rolled on top of me and pinned my arms with his knees.
He gritted his teeth and held the gun aloft.
My ears rang, my head swam, the side of my face felt flayed.
“If power’s what you’re after, an international thief and murderer will be a tough sell, even here in Cuba,” I said. With his weight on my chest, my voice didn’t sound nearly as tough as my words.
Gutierrez shoved the pistol in my face.
“Damn you, Buck Reilly!” He stared straight down the barrel. “At least I’ll have the pleasure of killing you.”
I tried to squirm left but he jammed his knees into my chest. There was nothing I could do—I closed my eyes.
BOOM!
The gunshot was so loud. I didn’t feel—
His body suddenly fell on top of me.
Gutierrez groaned and squirmed, blood from his chest dripping onto mine.
Nina stood in the middle of the room, rifle to her shoulder, one eye closed and the other still looking down the sight now aimed at us on the floor.
“Nina! You got him!”
For a split second I wondered if she was going to shoot me next—after all she’d been through, who would blame her?
The rifle clattered on the floor, and Nina covered her face with both hands.
I pushed the now semi-conscious Gutierrez aside. Based on the blood pouring out of him, I decided he was beyond help. Nina fell into my arms and I held her tight.
Now what?
51
Nina wasn’t in shock, but she was pretty close.
Based on what I found in the back of Gutierrez’s truck, he’d been well on his way to funding his power base or living in splendor until Ray and I showed up and jammed a broom in his spokes. Shame about that.
We hurtled at high speed in Gutierrez’s truck down the coastal road I’d come to know oh too well. Nina was quiet, but her tears had stopped. There hadn’t been time to move her grandfather, and my suggestion that she come with me back to Key West was again rebuffed, but she couldn’t stand to be alone at the farm with dead and bleeding bodies in her kitchen, so she came with me. I hadn’t told her about the body in the woods. The thought of that sickened me, but if I hadn’t made it past those men, Gutierrez would have not only killed her grandfather, he’d have raped and killed Nina too. The term justifiable homicide had never registered with me until now.
There was no way to know whether Gutierrez had allies in the police, PNR, or Secret Police. But based on the cargo in the back of the truck, along with his reaction when I mentioned my meeting with Sanchez—
I’d forgotten something.
“What about your cousin, Ramón?” I said.
“That bastard.”
She made a spitting sound toward the floor.
“It’s his fault Papi’s dead,” she said. “Tio Luz and I will hunt him down—”
“The problem is, there’s no way to know who else he’s told,” I said. “He might have been in the bushes the whole time for all we know. He can profit from any scenario, especially now.”
She bit her lip and shook her head.
“Please come with me, Nina. It’s too risky here now, especially if—”
She made a fist and pressed it against her lips. She didn’t break down, but her face turned red holding the rush of emotion back.
I wiped a sudden tear away from my cheek.
“My family has run the farm for generations,” she said. “I will bury Papi and appeal to my contacts at the Ministry of Agriculture. Nobody knows about the airplane, or you, aside from Ramón, and he’s a criminal. I’m a respected Vaqeura ….” Her voice cracked.
Her profile was beautiful, even in anguish. The wave of her hair, the almond color of her skin, the inner strength that … I realized there was more than a concern for her safety driving my appeal for her to come to Key West.
I kept quiet for the last few miles to Puerto Esperanza. When we rounded the corner into the small fishing village, the sight of Gutierrez’s truck sent women, children, and men alike running to their homes. Gutierrez’s reign of terror here had peaked when he had Juan killed, but on the beach there was further evidence of his rampage. The remains of several fishing boats were piled in a heap of charred wood and ashes. A few boats remained intact on the shore. Would they be enough to sustain the village? Had Señor Maceo given the map of the sunken U-boat to Juan? I hoped someone still had it.
I checked my watch. It was 7:45. Sanchez and Gunner should be intersecting in Bahia Honda soon, so our escape from here should be clean.
I backed the truck in next to the remains of Betty. She too had been burned and was now completely destroyed, almost beyond recognition.
I’d thought my heart couldn’t sink any further, but I was wrong.
The Beast had survived its take-off, but how had it held up in flight? I prayed that plane and pilot were okay.
“What’s the point of coming here, Buck?” Nina said. “If there was a way back to Florida from Puerto Esperanza you’d have already taken it, right?”
“Come on, let’s check Juan’s family.”
Once out of the truck, I went to the back and opened the gate. I took a gold ingot from one of the crates and placed it in my pocket. Faces appeared in windows. Once people could see it was me, and not Gutierrez, a few children emerged from their homes. There was no movement at Juan’s house and the windows were drawn shut.
Inside, I found Maria lying in her bed. Her face was bruised and her eyes black.
“I’m so sorry, Maria. Your husband was a very good man.”
Nina translated. When we asked about her children, she waved her wrist—they were outside. She had not uttered a word, and based on the swelling, I worried that her jaw was broken.
“Tell her Gutierrez will not be back to hurt them any more.”
Based on Maria’s wide eyes and the time Nina it took to explain, I assumed she went into detail as to Gutierrez’s fate. Tears came, and maybe a sigh of what I hoped was relief.
I took the gold bar from my pocket.
“Tell her that while this will never replace Juan, it will help her family survive.”
Nina placed the gold bar on the bed next to Maria, who looked bewildered.
“Where did that come from?” Nina asked.
I heard a distant clamor—a vehicle? It was getting louder by the second.
“What’s that?” Nina said.
“Let’s go.”
52
We hurried outside and found the villagers on the run toward their homes. The noise of the vehicle, ever louder, was coming from the road leading into town.
“Come on!”
We ran toward the truck. Were there any weapons inside? I couldn’t remember. Halfway there, the source of the sound appeared around the corner of the mangroves, palm trees and casuarina pines.
“Oh my God!” Nina said.
The Beast banked hard around the shoreline, maybe a hundred feet off the water. Her engines sounded in perfect cadence, which considering their difference in size was an amazing tribute to Ray Floyd’s mechanical and piloting abilities. He banked out over the water and leveled off.
“So that’s why you wanted to come here,” Nina said.
I checked my watch. Ray was right on time.
When I turned to see Nina’s expression, I was surprised to see many of the villagers back out on the narrow beach. They watched in amazement as Ray lowered the Beast into the water where the channel led to shore. The wind was light, as were the waves, so she settled in gently. The wing and engine from Betty looked solid, and it appeared as though Ray had worked out the weight difference in flight.
Now, if all the patches on the fuselage held, we’d be fine.
Nina’s cheeks glistened with tears. She didn’t need to say what was on her mind. Her grandfather would have been thrilled to see his Beauty on the water. I squeezed her
close, she put her arm around my waist, and we locked in a tight embrace. Her tears were wet against my neck. I kissed them off her cheeks.
“Come with us, Nina. The farm will be fine. When the new government settles down, you can come back. I’ll bring you in the Beast.”
She shook her head. The answer was still no.
I COULD SEE THE smile on Ray’s face as he taxied up to the beach. I ran a finger across my throat, signaling for him to kill the engines, then waved him to shore. While he waded the fifty feet from where the Beast had come to rest, I opened the back of the truck.
“You see that?” Ray’s grin was wider than I’d ever seen on him before. “She runs like a dream!”
Ray scanned down the beach. “Where’s Señor Maceo? He’s got to see this!”
His expression soured when he focused on me. “What happened to your face? And Nina’s eye?”
Nina covered her eyes when Ray started to ask another question.
He finally saw me shaking my head. His brow furrowed, and he looked past me.
“Where’d you get that truck?”
I gave him a thirty-second rundown on what happened after he left. Ray deflated totally after about ten seconds. He hugged Nina, tears streaming down his cheeks, and then looked at me.
“What about Gutierrez?” he said.
Nina lifted her chin. “I shot the bastard.”
One of the villagers must have spoken English, because that began a chain of Spanish that ran up the beach, and each time one person conveyed the news to the next, their eyes lit up and they hugged, or snapped their fingers, or clapped and hooted. It reminded me of The Wizard of Oz.
The wicked witch was dead.
“Help me with these, Ray.” I pointed into the back of the truck.
He stared for a long few seconds. “Where have I seen those boxes before?”
“On the Sea Lion.”
He looked confused. “Did Truck come—”
“Gutierrez and his boss, Director Sanchez, were behind it all. He admitted it before—” I looked at Nina. “He’s been driving around with them in this truck because he double-crossed Sanchez and had nowhere safe to hide. It’s the other half the Peruvians dropped off en route to the canal.”
I climbed inside the truck bed and pushed the first crate out to the edge. Ray and I horsed it through the surf and hefted it up into the Beast’s hatch. We did this three more times, and when we were finished, the once voluminous fuselage was heavily laden. No water was evident inside, so the patches had held, so far.
“This is going to play hell with the center of gravity I worked out,” Ray said.
From the water, I scanned the beach. Hopefully these people’s lives could be restored to a sense of normalcy. My gaze stopped on Nina. She was sitting on the truck’s open tailgate watching us.
“Fire up the Beast, Ray. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
He disappeared between the crates and I waded back to shore. The sound of the engines starting got everyone’s attention. I was amazed that the old Goose was airworthy, but then again, it wouldn’t be by FAA standards. If and when we made it back to Key West, we’d see if she was really worth salvaging.
As I walked toward Nina there was a commotion amongst the villagers. They began to hurry toward their shacks again, just as they had when Nina and I arrived. She hopped off the truck and I was about to hug her goodbye when I saw what the others had seen.
A truck flew into the small compound.
It was the Maceo’s farm truck.
53
I grabbed Nina’s hand and pulled her into the surf.
“What are you doing?”
She followed my gaze toward the road and didn’t miss a beat when she saw her truck. We high-stepped into the water until a rifle shot stopped us cold.
The Beast was fifty feet away, but we’d never make it.
To my amazement, Gutierrez stepped out onto the beach, followed by the guard I’d knocked out and tied up in the woods, who now had a rifle aimed at us.
We held up our hands.
There was a makeshift bandage around Gutierrez’s shoulder and upper part of his chest, stained dark. He wavered as he stood and said something to the guard, who kept the rifle trained on us while Gutierrez tumbled over to peer into the back of the truck.
All his precious crates were gone.
I studied the men and saw no weapons other than the rifle. If I could disarm the guard we’d have a chance, but I was ten feet into the water, and thirty feet away from them. Gutierrez leaned on the truck’s open tailgate and waved his hand toward us.
“Just stay behind me and move slowly,” I said.
We shuffled toward shore when a loud roar behind us caused Nina and me to dive into the water.
What the hell?
Another continuous burst sounded. Water and sand flew into the air in front of us. The guard threw the rifle down and held his hands aloft.
Over my shoulder, I saw Ray in the Beast’s open hatch aiming a Thompson submachine gun toward the shore.
Holy shit! Ray?
The guard backed up toward the road—then with no warning, close to a dozen villagers appeared from the brush and blocked his path to the truck. Maria, Juan’s widow, walked forward from behind them and said something that sounded menacing. The villagers were holding machetes and fishing knives. One held a gaff.
The guard stood frozen. A machine gun on one end, or retribution on the other. He dropped to his knees and started to plead with the villagers who encircled him.
Good luck with that, amigo.
Gutierrez hadn’t budged. I walked toward him. He was pale and held the arm on his wounded side with his good arm. His shirt was soggy with blood and he didn’t look like he’d last long without medical attention.
“Reilly,” he whispered. “The Bay of Pigs plane … There’s supposed to be a letter …”
Letter? Did he—was it that well known?
Nina, now next to me, stared at Gutierrez as if he were a leper.
Maria walked toward us, speaking in Spanish.
“She says these are two of the men who tortured and hung Juan,” Nina said.
I could see in Maria’s eyes that she had a plan. She said something else and motioned toward Gutierrez.
“She said they’ll take care of them and that you should get going before the others come too,” Nina said.
Gutierrez stared into the sand. Wounded, defeated, dying on this shabby little beach in western Cuba, his stash of riches gone, and estranged from the power base that had allowed him to act brutally and without consequences. He’d been a thief/murderer while living in Key West pretending to be an art dealer, a thief/murderer while living in Cuba pretending to be a hero of the revolution.
As one of the conspirators behind the Atocha theft, though, he could also prove Truck’s innocence—and mine.
“Ask Maria if I can take Gutierrez with me back to Florida. He’s wanted there for murder.”
“He murdered here, too, my Papi—”
“Nina, would you rather have him rot in jail the rest of his life for murder and treason, or meet a swift and merciful death here on this beach?”
She stared at me, her lips quivered, and her eyes were hot embers. Nina balled her hands into fists and spoke in a hushed yet determined tone with Maria. Finally, Maria nodded, gave Nina a hug, me a quick nod, and returned to her people.
“What’s the deal?” I said.
“They keep that one, and we get Gutierrez,” she said.
“We?”
Ray slogged to shore, holding the Thompson like he was Rambo. When he stopped next to me I saw he was grinning.
“Nice job, partner,” I said.
“I kept a couple crates of guns and ammo for ballast to help with the center of gravity. Never thought I’d need to use one!” He grinned. “This is way better than video games.”
The guard cried and pleaded as the villagers dragged him. I didn’t know where Juan had been hung, but my
guess was they would take him to that exact spot.
For the next few minutes Nina held the gun on Gutierrez, who lay on the beach while Ray and I organized the crates to balance the weight. The village had gone quiet, and Gutierrez had slipped back to a semi-conscience state.
I walked back to the shore. “All right, time to take this criminal back to Key West,” I said.
Nina stood up, still holding the Thompson.
“I’m coming too.”
A tingle passed through my back that stood me up straight.
“You were right, Buck. There’s nothing left for me here.” She nodded back toward the village. “I don’t want to live for vengeance, and I don’t want to live at the farm with Papi dead.”
She started toward the plane, but I grabbed her and pulled her into my arms. She hugged me—with the gun between us.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Buck, but I’m leaving Cuba with you, not for you. Do you understand?”
A tinge of hurt cut through me, but just for a moment. I understood. Nina had to do things on her terms. I could live with that, but it didn’t mean I’d leave her at the Key West airport like some kind of charter. And it didn’t mean I wouldn’t help her integrate into American culture or help her find her relatives.
“I understand, Nina. And I’ll be there for you any way you need me.”
A hint of a smile pulled at the corners of her mouth.
Gutierrez, now delirious, had to be carried, and once we were all on board, Ray gave me a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look. Then he sighed, threw a weapons crate into the water to reduce the weight, closed the hatch, and helped me secure Gutierrez between the crates of Atocha treasure. Nina watched him from the jump seat.
“Okay, Captain,” Ray said. “We’re green to go.”
The statement caused a reflexive glance back at Betty, now a charred, skeletal heap on the narrow beach. I knew the villagers would tell stories about her until she rusted into oblivion, and the thought made me choke up.
After a few seconds, a deep breath drew a mixture of adrenaline, joy, and trepidation into my system. A quick prayer and an accelerated pre-flight check led to a bumpy takeoff—listing heavily to starboard, and out over the Florida straits. Ray fine-tuned the weight distribution and Nina crawled forward, which helped, but it still wasn’t perfect.
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